Machine translation is a technique to convert the text or speech of a language to that of another language by using a computer. In other words, the machine translation is to automatically translate one language into another language without the involvement of human labor by using the huge memory capacity and digital processing ability of computer to generate dictionary and syntax with mathematics method, based on the theory of language formation and structure analysis.
Generally speaking, current machine translation system is a text-based translation system, which translates the text of one language to that of another language. But with the development of society, the speech-based translation system is needed. By using current speech recognition technique, text-based translation technique and TTS (text-to-speech) technique, a first language speech may be recognized with the speech recognition technique and transformed into the text of the language; then the text of the first language is translated into that of a second language, based on which, the speech of the second language is generated by using the TTS technique.
However, the existing TTS systems usually produce inexpressive and monotonous speech. For a typical TTS system available today, the standard pronunciations of all the words (in syllables) are first recorded and analyzed, and then relevant parameters for standard “expressions” at the word level are stored in a dictionary. A synthesized word is generated from the component syllables, with standard control parameters defined in a dictionary, using the usual smoothing techniques to stitch the components together. Such a speech production cannot create speech that is full of expressions based on the meanings of the sentence and the emotions of the speaker.
Therefore, what is needed, and is an object of the present invention is a system and method to provide an expressive speech-to-speech system and method.